April 2009

More on the Merits of Local, Grass Fed Meat

Just read an excellent post by someone in Minneapolis called Reetsyburger on her cleverly named blog You Are Where You Eat. The post includes all sorts of great information on grass fed, local, sustainable meat and why it totally rocks. Here's an excerpt (which quotes University of Wisconsin Extension):

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What if Local Food Ain't All That?

lamb1Super-good post the other day from Zachary Cohen on his Farm to Table blog entitled What all of us in the food movement sometimes think.

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What Would Jesus Eat?

With Easter now over, and copious amounts of ham and potatoes consumed across the nation (including my wife's Aunt Carol's house), I can turn to a question I've been mulling over in my head: what would Jesus eat?

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Traditional Foods Minnesota

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Traditional Foods Minnesota, a self proclaimed "real food warehouse" and "buying club," offers some of the Twin Cities best foods at the lowest prices. Traditional Foods focuses on providing a wide variety of meats, cheeses, milk, eggs, poultry, fish and dry goods of the following kinds:

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The Local Easter Meal

Ah, Spring is in the air! For my family, that means loads of birthday celebrations, along with Easter, Passover, and May Day. We celebrate whenever we can. Easter Sunday is an easy one to do with local, sustainable, and organic foods, especially if you live in Minnesota, land of the pig and root vegetable. The folks at TheKitchn.com have provided a terrific list of places to find sustainable ham (heritage breeds), just in time for Easter.

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Last Chance for a Simple, Good, and Tasty Meal at the Craftsman

craftsmanIf you're still contemplating coming to the first-ever Simple, Good, and Tasty dinner at the Craftsman Restaurant in Minneapolis on April 14, now would be a really good time to commit. In short: we're running out of space! I couldn't be more thrilled about the number of people who've reserved a spot so far (BIG thank you to those who're coming!).

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Simple, Good, and Tasty Matzo Ball Soup Recipe

By popular demand (2 requests qualify, IMHO), here's my matzo ball soup recipe. It comes from In the Jewish Tradition: A Year of Festivities and Foods, a terrific cookbook by Judith B. Fellner that I got from my friend Anne a few years ago. The book has loads of new takes on traditional Jewish foods, and most things are relatively easy to make. The matzo ball soup certainly qualifies as simple, good, and tasty.

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The Sustainable Passover Seder

I had a blast at my good friends' Passover Seder last night. Awesome people, an exciting story ("Let my people go!" Moses demands each year), and terrific food. My wife and I made the matzo ball soup again this year, this time a more local, organic version - free range chickens, organic chicken broth, home-made matzo balls (with locally raised cage-free eggs, all from The Wedge Co-op) - and even the kids asked for more.

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Seasonal Meat? Of Course!

Excellent, short post on Zachary Cohen's Farm to Table blog this week about the seasonality of meat. The post references a seasonal meat article in the seasonalAtlantic, noting that, just as produce needs time to ripen before it's ready, sustainably raised, grass-fed animals need time to graze and grow before they're ready as well. Definitely worth a read.

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Whole Foods Up Close: Breaking Into the Chain (Part 3 of 3)

My recent tour of Whole Foods has got me thinking about how true the company has stayed to its core values despite its size. Sure, there are problems. The buying decisions are made centrally, bakery items are shipped to local stores par-baked, there are only 5 local vegetables this month in the Minneapolis location, and - most troubling - a friend recently let me know that Whole Foods has been accused of union-busting. But all things considered, Whole Foods does an excellent job of walking the talk, and helping customers find the good stuff. This post highlights the extensive process Whole Foods uses to vet potential new partners.

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